A law passed after coal-mine disasters in 2006 gave the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration authority to issue fines up to $220,000 for each flagrant safety violation, but that power was never used at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine where an April 2010 explosion killed 29 miners. "The idea was to more harshly punish chronic and serious mine safety violations as part of a strategy to force mine operators to follow federal regulations," Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette reports. "MSHA has used the authority more than 125 times in the last five years to fine mine operators $19.5 million."
MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere said the question of why Upper Big Branch was never cited under the flagrant violation provision is one subject of an internal review. "It's a very good question, and one that will be ably answered by the internal review team," Louviere said in an email response to questions from the Gazette. "If they find anything amiss or any deficiencies on MSHA's part, they will appear in the report and MSHA will need to address them."
The 2006 law defined flagrant as "a reckless or repeated failure to make reasonable efforts to eliminate a known violation of a mandatory health or safety standard that substantially and proximately caused, or reasonably could have been expected to cause, death or serious bodily injury." MSHA issued its first flagrant violations in April 2007 and issued 70 such violations in 2008. "Congress gave us powerful new tools to strengthen mine safety, and we are going to use them fully," Then-MSHA chief Richard Stickler said at the time. The agency issued just 19 flagrant violations in both 2009 and 2010 and has issued only three flagrant violations so far in 2011, Ward writes. (Read more)
MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere said the question of why Upper Big Branch was never cited under the flagrant violation provision is one subject of an internal review. "It's a very good question, and one that will be ably answered by the internal review team," Louviere said in an email response to questions from the Gazette. "If they find anything amiss or any deficiencies on MSHA's part, they will appear in the report and MSHA will need to address them."
The 2006 law defined flagrant as "a reckless or repeated failure to make reasonable efforts to eliminate a known violation of a mandatory health or safety standard that substantially and proximately caused, or reasonably could have been expected to cause, death or serious bodily injury." MSHA issued its first flagrant violations in April 2007 and issued 70 such violations in 2008. "Congress gave us powerful new tools to strengthen mine safety, and we are going to use them fully," Then-MSHA chief Richard Stickler said at the time. The agency issued just 19 flagrant violations in both 2009 and 2010 and has issued only three flagrant violations so far in 2011, Ward writes. (Read more)
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